Barnard College
Encyclopedia
Barnard College is a private women's
liberal arts college
and a member of the Seven Sisters
. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University
since 1900. The 4 acres (1.6 ha) campus stretches along Broadway
between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough
of Manhattan
, in New York City
. It is adjacent to Columbia's campus and near several other academic institutions and has been used by Barnard since 1898.
comparable to that of Columbia and other Ivy League
schools, most of which admitted only men for undergraduate study into the 1960s. The college was named after Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard, an American educator and mathematician, who served as the president of the then-Columbia College from 1864 to 1889. Frederick Barnard advocated equal educational privileges for men and women, preferably in a coeducational setting. The school's founding, however, is largely due to the efforts of Annie Nathan Meyer
, a student and writer who was not satisfied with Columbia's effort to educate women.
Barnard's original 1889 home was a rented brownstone
at 343 Madison Avenue, where a faculty of six offered instruction to 14 students in the School of Arts, as well as to 22 "specials", who lacked the entrance requirements in Greek and so enrolled in science. When Columbia University announced in 1892 its impending move to Morningside Heights, Barnard built a new campus on 119th-120th Streets with gifts from Mary E. Brinckerhoff, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson
and Martha T. Fiske. Milbank, Brinckerhoff, and Fiske Halls
, built in 1897-1898, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 2003. As the college grew it needed additional space, and in 1903 it received the three blocks south of 119th Street from Anderson who had purchased a former portion of the Bloomingdale Asylum site from the New York Hospital.
Students' Hall
, now known as Barnard Hall, was built in 1916. Brooks and Hewitt Halls
were built in 1906-1907 and 1926–1927, respectively. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
, the university's original undergraduate school, began admitting women in 1983 after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard for a merger akin to the one between Harvard College
and Radcliffe College
.
Despite the affiliation Barnard is legally and financially separate from Columbia, with an independent faculty and board of trustees. It is responsible for its own separate admissions, health, security, guidance and placement services, and has its own alumnae association. Nonetheless, Barnard students participate in the academic, social, athletic and extracurricular life of the broader University community on a reciprocal basis, and several of the university's undergraduate departments are based in the college. Most Columbia classes are open to Barnard students and vice versa. Barnard students and faculty are represented in the University Senate, and student clubs are open to all students.
Admissions to Barnard College is considered most selective by U.S. News & World Report
. Barnard College is the most selective women's college in the nation; in 2008, Barnard had the lowest acceptance rate of the five Seven Sisters
that remain single-sex in admissions.
For the class of 2011, Barnard College admitted 28.7% of those who applied. The median ACT score was 30, while the median combined SAT
score was 2100.
For the class of 2012, the admission rate was 28.5% of the 4,273 applications received. The early-decision admission rate was 47.7%, out of 392 applications. The median SAT Combined was 2060, with median subscores of 660 in Math, 690 in Critical Reading, and 700 in Writing. The Median ACT score was 30. Of the women in the class of 2012, 89.4% ranked in first or second decile at their high school (of the 41.3% ranked by their schools). The average GPA
of the class of 2012 was 94.3 on a 100-point scale and 3.88 on a 4.0 scale.
For the class of 2013, 90.3% ranked in first or second decile at their high school (of the 35.0% ranked by their schools). The average GPA
of the class of 2013 was 94.6 on a 100-pt. scale and 3.84 on a 4.0 scale.
For the class of 2014, the admit rate was 27.8%, with 4,618 applications received. For the class of 2015, 5,154 applications were received, setting the admission rate at 24.9%.
In 1998, then president Judith Shapiro
compared the ranking service to the "equivalent of Sport's Illustrated's swimsuit issue." According to Shapiro's letter, "Such a ranking system certainly does more harm than good in terms of educating the public." On Tuesday, June 19, 2007, following a meeting of the Annapolis Group
, which represents over 100 liberal arts colleges, Barnard announced that it would no longer participate in the U.S. News annual survey, and that they would fashion their own way to collect and report common data.
prize-winning poet Gabriela Mistral
, and a small collection of other rare books. The Overbury Collection consists of 3,300 items, including special and first edition books as well as manuscript materials by and about American women authors. Alumnae Books is a collection of books donated by Barnard alumnae authors. Conflicting accounts list either Richard B. Snow or Philip M. Chu as the architect of Lehman Hall... as well as of the Amherst College
library and one of the libraries at Princeton University
. The 65000 square feet (6,038.7 m²) building opened in 1959.
s in an effort to document the third-wave feminism
and Riot Grrrl
culture. The Zine Collection complements Barnard's women's studies
research holdings because it gives room to voices of girls and women otherwise under or not at all represented in the book stacks. According to its Library collection development
policy, Barnard's zines are "written by New York City and other urban women with an emphasis on zines by women of color. (In this case the word woman includes anyone who identifies as female and some who don't believe in binary gender
.) The zines are personal and political publications on activism
, anarchism
, body image
, third wave feminism, gender
, parenting
, queer community
, riotgrrrl, sexual assault
, and other topics."
Barnard's collection documents movements and trends in feminist
thought through the personal work of artists, writers, and activists. Currently, the Barnard Zine Collection has over 2,000 items, including zines about race, gender, sexuality
, childbirth
, mother
hood, politics
, and relationships
. Barnard attempts to collect two copies of each zine, one of which circulates with the second copy archived for preservation
. To facilitate circulation
, Barnard zines are cataloged
in CLIO (the Columbia/Barnard OPAC) and OCLC's Worldcat
.
(SGA), which elects a representative student government
. Students serve with faculty and administrators on college committees and help to shape policy in a wide variety of areas.
Student groups include theatre
and vocal music groups, language clubs, literary magazines, a radio station called WBAR
, a biweekly magazine called the Barnard Bulletin, community service groups, and others. Barnard students can also join extracurricular activities
or organizations at Columbia University, while Columbia University students are allowed in most, but not all, Barnard organizations.
Barnard's McIntosh Activities Council (commonly known as McAC), named after the first President of Barnard, Millicent Mcintosh, organizes various community focused events on campus, such as Big Sub and Midnight Breakfast
. McAC is made up of five sub-committees which are the Multi-Cultural committee, the Time-Out committee, the Network committee, the Community committee, and the Action committee. Each committee has a different focus, such as hosting and publicizing multi-cultural events (Multi-Cultural), having regular study breaks and relaxation events (Time-Out), giving students opportunities to be involved with Alumnae and various professionals (Network), planning events that bring the entire student body together (Community), and planning community service events that give back to the surrounding community (Action).
In 2011, Barnard's SGA and McAC will work together to bring back the Greek Games, an old but quite famous Barnard tradition.
Two National Panhellenic Conference
organizations were founded at Barnard College. Alpha Omicron Pi
Fraternity, was founded on January 2, 1897, the Alpha Epsilon Phi
, founded on October 24, 1909, though both are no longer on campus. Barnard students now participate in four National Panhellenic Conference sororities - Alpha Chi Omega
, Delta Gamma
, Kappa Alpha Theta
, and Sigma Delta Tau
and the National Pan-Hellenic Council Sororities on campus - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (Lambda Chapter) and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (Rho Chapter).
Division I and the Ivy League
through the Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium. There are 15 intercollegiate teams
, and students also compete at the intramural
and club levels.
From 1975-1983, before the establishment of the Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium, Barnard students competed as the "Barnard Bears". Prior to 1975, students referred to themselves as the "Barnard honeybears".
, a major part of which is the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas
emissions by 30% by 2017. Student EcoReps work as a resource on environmental issues for students in Barnard's residence halls, while the student-run Earth Coalition works on outreach initiatives such as local park clean-ups, tutoring elementary school students in environmental education, and sponsoring environmental forums. Barnard earned a "C-" for its sustainability efforts on the College Sustainability Report Card 2009 published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Its highest marks were in Student Involvement and Food and Recycling, receiving a "B" in both categories.
.
In March 1968, The New York Times
ran an article on students who cohabited, identifying one of the persons they interviewed as a student at Barnard College from New Hampshire named "Susan". Barnard officials searched their records for women from New Hampshire and were able to determine that "Susan" was the pseudonym of a student (Linda LeClair) who was living with her boyfriend, a student at Columbia University. She was called before Barnard's student-faculty administration judicial committee, where she faced the possibility of expulsion. A student protest included a petition signed by 300 other Barnard women, admitting that they too had broken the regulations against cohabitating. The judicial committee reached a compromise and the student was allowed to remain in school, but was denied use of the college cafeteria and barred from all social activities. The student briefly became a focus of intense national attention. She eventually dropped out of Barnard.
In October, 2011, the Barnard administration issued a controversial policy which mandated that every student must pay full-time tuition as of Fall 2012, regardless of how many credits were taken. Students, families and faculty alike responded with a petition on Change.org and a protest from students.
Women's colleges in the United States
Women's colleges in the United States are single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that exclude or limit males from admission. They are often liberal arts colleges...
liberal arts college
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
and a member of the Seven Sisters
Seven Sisters (colleges)
The Seven Sisters are seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges. They are Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College. All were founded between 1837 and...
. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
since 1900. The 4 acres (1.6 ha) campus stretches along Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It is adjacent to Columbia's campus and near several other academic institutions and has been used by Barnard since 1898.
History
Barnard was founded to provide an education for womenFemale education
Female education is a catch-all term for a complex of issues and debates surrounding education for females. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education, and its connection to the alleviation of poverty...
comparable to that of Columbia and other Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
schools, most of which admitted only men for undergraduate study into the 1960s. The college was named after Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard, an American educator and mathematician, who served as the president of the then-Columbia College from 1864 to 1889. Frederick Barnard advocated equal educational privileges for men and women, preferably in a coeducational setting. The school's founding, however, is largely due to the efforts of Annie Nathan Meyer
Annie Nathan Meyer
Annie Nathan Meyer was an American author and promoter of the higher education of women. Her sister was the activist Maud Nathan and her nephew the author and poet Robert Nathan.-Life and career:...
, a student and writer who was not satisfied with Columbia's effort to educate women.
Barnard's original 1889 home was a rented brownstone
Brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...
at 343 Madison Avenue, where a faculty of six offered instruction to 14 students in the School of Arts, as well as to 22 "specials", who lacked the entrance requirements in Greek and so enrolled in science. When Columbia University announced in 1892 its impending move to Morningside Heights, Barnard built a new campus on 119th-120th Streets with gifts from Mary E. Brinckerhoff, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson
Elizabeth Milbank Anderson
Elizabeth Milbank Anderson , philanthropist and advocate for public health and women's education, was the daughter of Jeremiah Milbank , a successful commission merchant, manufacturer and investor, and Elizabeth Lake...
and Martha T. Fiske. Milbank, Brinckerhoff, and Fiske Halls
Milbank, Brinckerhoff, and Fiske Halls
Milbank, Brinckerhoff, and Fiske Halls are historic buildings located on the campus of Barnard College in Morningside Heights, New York, New York. The three interconnected buildings are collectively known as Milbank Hall. They were designed by Charles A. Rich and built between 1897 and 1898 and...
, built in 1897-1898, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 2003. As the college grew it needed additional space, and in 1903 it received the three blocks south of 119th Street from Anderson who had purchased a former portion of the Bloomingdale Asylum site from the New York Hospital.
Students' Hall
Students' Hall
Students' Hall, now known as Barnard Hall, is a historic educational building located on the campus of Barnard College in Morningside Heights, New York, New York. It was designed by Arnold Brunner and built in 1916 and contains classrooms. It is four stories on a raised basement built of dark red...
, now known as Barnard Hall, was built in 1916. Brooks and Hewitt Halls
Brooks and Hewitt Halls
Brooks and Hewitt Halls are historic dormitory buildings located on the campus of Barnard College in Morningside Heights, New York, New York. Brooks Hall was designed by Charles A. Rich and built in 1906-1907. It is a seven and one half story, red Harvard brick building on a granite foundation...
were built in 1906-1907 and 1926–1927, respectively. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
Relationship with Columbia University
The relationship between Barnard College and Columbia University is complex. Barnard College describes itself as an official college of Columbia University. Columbia describes Barnard as an affiliated institution. All Barnard faculty are granted tenure by the college and Columbia, and Barnard graduates receive diplomas signed by both the Barnard and Columbia presidents. In 1900, Barnard formalized an affiliation with the university which made available to its students the instruction and facilities of Columbia. Barnard currently pays an annual fee to the university to maintain Columbia facilities used by Barnard students, such as Dodge Gym. The affiliation continues although Columbia CollegeColumbia College of Columbia University
Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II...
, the university's original undergraduate school, began admitting women in 1983 after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard for a merger akin to the one between Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
and Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
.
Despite the affiliation Barnard is legally and financially separate from Columbia, with an independent faculty and board of trustees. It is responsible for its own separate admissions, health, security, guidance and placement services, and has its own alumnae association. Nonetheless, Barnard students participate in the academic, social, athletic and extracurricular life of the broader University community on a reciprocal basis, and several of the university's undergraduate departments are based in the college. Most Columbia classes are open to Barnard students and vice versa. Barnard students and faculty are represented in the University Senate, and student clubs are open to all students.
Admissions
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
. Barnard College is the most selective women's college in the nation; in 2008, Barnard had the lowest acceptance rate of the five Seven Sisters
Seven Sisters (colleges)
The Seven Sisters are seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges. They are Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College. All were founded between 1837 and...
that remain single-sex in admissions.
For the class of 2011, Barnard College admitted 28.7% of those who applied. The median ACT score was 30, while the median combined SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
score was 2100.
For the class of 2012, the admission rate was 28.5% of the 4,273 applications received. The early-decision admission rate was 47.7%, out of 392 applications. The median SAT Combined was 2060, with median subscores of 660 in Math, 690 in Critical Reading, and 700 in Writing. The Median ACT score was 30. Of the women in the class of 2012, 89.4% ranked in first or second decile at their high school (of the 41.3% ranked by their schools). The average GPA
Grade (education)
Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...
of the class of 2012 was 94.3 on a 100-point scale and 3.88 on a 4.0 scale.
For the class of 2013, 90.3% ranked in first or second decile at their high school (of the 35.0% ranked by their schools). The average GPA
Grade (education)
Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...
of the class of 2013 was 94.6 on a 100-pt. scale and 3.84 on a 4.0 scale.
For the class of 2014, the admit rate was 27.8%, with 4,618 applications received. For the class of 2015, 5,154 applications were received, setting the admission rate at 24.9%.
Academic Ranking
Barnard was most recently ranked 26th in the U.S. News & World Report Rankings. The ranking came under widespread criticism, as it only accounted for institution-specific resources. Greg Brown, chief operating officer at Barnard, said, “I believe that our ranking is lower than it should be, primarily because the methodology simply can’t account for the Barnard-Columbia relationship. Because the Columbia relationship doesn’t fit neatly into any of the survey categories, it is essentially ignored. Rankings are inherently limited in this way.”In 1998, then president Judith Shapiro
Judith Shapiro
Judith R. Shapiro is a former President of Barnard College, a liberal arts college for women affiliated with Columbia University; as President of Barnard, she was also an academic dean within the university. She was also a professor of anthropology at Barnard...
compared the ranking service to the "equivalent of Sport's Illustrated's swimsuit issue." According to Shapiro's letter, "Such a ranking system certainly does more harm than good in terms of educating the public." On Tuesday, June 19, 2007, following a meeting of the Annapolis Group
Annapolis Group
The Annapolis Group is an American organization that describes itself as "a nonprofit alliance of the nation’s leading independent liberal arts colleges." It represents approximately 130 liberal arts colleges in the United States...
, which represents over 100 liberal arts colleges, Barnard announced that it would no longer participate in the U.S. News annual survey, and that they would fashion their own way to collect and report common data.
Barnard Library
Barnard's Wollman Library is located in Adele Lehman Hall. Its collection includes over 300,000 volumes which support the undergraduate curriculum. It also houses an archival collection of official and student publications, photographs, letters and other material that documents Barnard’s history from its founding in 1889 to the present day. Barnard's rare books collections include the Overbury Collection, the personal library of NobelNobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
prize-winning poet Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945...
, and a small collection of other rare books. The Overbury Collection consists of 3,300 items, including special and first edition books as well as manuscript materials by and about American women authors. Alumnae Books is a collection of books donated by Barnard alumnae authors. Conflicting accounts list either Richard B. Snow or Philip M. Chu as the architect of Lehman Hall... as well as of the Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
library and one of the libraries at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. The 65000 square feet (6,038.7 m²) building opened in 1959.
Barnard Library Zine Collection
Barnard collects zineZine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
s in an effort to document the third-wave feminism
Third-wave feminism
Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study whose exact boundaries in the historiography of feminism are a subject of debate, but often marked as beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present...
and Riot Grrrl
Riot grrrl
Riot grrrl was an underground feminist punk movement based in Washington, DC, Olympia, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and the greater Pacific Northwest which existed in the early to mid-1990s, and it is often associated with third-wave feminism...
culture. The Zine Collection complements Barnard's women's studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
research holdings because it gives room to voices of girls and women otherwise under or not at all represented in the book stacks. According to its Library collection development
Library collection development
Library collection development is the process of meeting the information needs of the people in a timely and economical manner using information resources locally held, as well as from other organizations....
policy, Barnard's zines are "written by New York City and other urban women with an emphasis on zines by women of color. (In this case the word woman includes anyone who identifies as female and some who don't believe in binary gender
Gender binary
The gender binary is the classification of sex and gender into two distinct and disconnected forms of masculine and feminine. It is one general type of a gender system. It can describe a social boundary that discourages people from crossing or mixing gender roles, or from creating other third ...
.) The zines are personal and political publications on activism
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, body image
Body image
Body image refers to a person's perception of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of their own body. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his masterpiece The Image and Appearance of the Human Body...
, third wave feminism, gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
, parenting
Parenting
Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood...
, queer community
Gay community
The gay community, or LGBT community, is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT-supportive people, organizations and subcultures, united by a common culture and civil rights movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality...
, riotgrrrl, sexual assault
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
, and other topics."
Barnard's collection documents movements and trends in feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
thought through the personal work of artists, writers, and activists. Currently, the Barnard Zine Collection has over 2,000 items, including zines about race, gender, sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, childbirth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
, mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
hood, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, and relationships
Intimate relationship
An intimate relationship is a particularly close interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Physical intimacy is characterized by romantic or passionate love and attachment, or sexual activity. The term is also sometimes used euphemistically for a sexual...
. Barnard attempts to collect two copies of each zine, one of which circulates with the second copy archived for preservation
Preservation (library and archival science)
Preservation is a branch of library and information science concerned with maintaining or restoring access to artifacts, documents and records through the study, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of decay and damage....
. To facilitate circulation
Library circulation
Library circulation or library lending comprises the activities around the lending of library books and other material to users of a lending library. A circulation or lending department is one of the key departments of a library....
, Barnard zines are cataloged
Library catalog
A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations...
in CLIO (the Columbia/Barnard OPAC) and OCLC's Worldcat
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...
.
Student organizations
Every Barnard student is part of the Student Government AssociationStudents' union
A students' union, student government, student senate, students' association, guild of students or government of student body is a student organization present in many colleges and universities, and has started appearing in some high schools...
(SGA), which elects a representative student government
Student governments in the United States
In the United States, these groups are often known as student government, associated students, student senate, or less commonly a student's union...
. Students serve with faculty and administrators on college committees and help to shape policy in a wide variety of areas.
Student groups include theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
and vocal music groups, language clubs, literary magazines, a radio station called WBAR
WBAR
WBAR is the college radio station of Barnard College in New York City. Currently online-only, WBAR was developed as a freeform alternative to WKCR on the Columbia University campus. In addition to broadcasting an array of shows, WBAR hosts several shows per year in Morningside Heights, including...
, a biweekly magazine called the Barnard Bulletin, community service groups, and others. Barnard students can also join extracurricular activities
Extracurricular activity
Extracurricular activities are activities performed by students that fall outside the realm of the normal curriculum of school or university education...
or organizations at Columbia University, while Columbia University students are allowed in most, but not all, Barnard organizations.
Barnard's McIntosh Activities Council (commonly known as McAC), named after the first President of Barnard, Millicent Mcintosh, organizes various community focused events on campus, such as Big Sub and Midnight Breakfast
Midnight breakfast
Midnight breakfast is a generic term for a communal meal served at some American colleges and universities. Menu items that are generally considered breakfast foods are served in the school's dining hall late at night as a study break before or during final exams, or as a traditional...
. McAC is made up of five sub-committees which are the Multi-Cultural committee, the Time-Out committee, the Network committee, the Community committee, and the Action committee. Each committee has a different focus, such as hosting and publicizing multi-cultural events (Multi-Cultural), having regular study breaks and relaxation events (Time-Out), giving students opportunities to be involved with Alumnae and various professionals (Network), planning events that bring the entire student body together (Community), and planning community service events that give back to the surrounding community (Action).
In 2011, Barnard's SGA and McAC will work together to bring back the Greek Games, an old but quite famous Barnard tradition.
Two National Panhellenic Conference
National Panhellenic Conference
The National Panhellenic Conference , founded in 1902, is an umbrella organization for 26 national women's sororities.Each member group is autonomous as a social, Greek-letter society of college women and alumnae...
organizations were founded at Barnard College. Alpha Omicron Pi
Alpha Omicron Pi
Alpha Omicron Pi is an international women's fraternity promoting friendship for a lifetime, inspiring academic excellence and lifelong learning, and developing leadership skills through service to the Fraternity and community. ΑΟΠ was founded on January 2, 1897 at Barnard College on the campus...
Fraternity, was founded on January 2, 1897, the Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Epsilon Phi is a sorority and member of the National Panhellenic Conference. It was founded on October 24, 1909 at Barnard College in New York City by seven Jewish women; Helen Phillips Lipman, Ida Beck Carlin, Rose Gerstein Smolin, Augustina "Tina" Hess Solomon, Lee Reiss Liebert, Rose...
, founded on October 24, 1909, though both are no longer on campus. Barnard students now participate in four National Panhellenic Conference sororities - Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Chi Omega is a women's fraternity founded on October 15, 1885. Currently, there are 135 chapters of Alpha Chi Omega at colleges and universities across the United States and more than 200,000 lifetime members...
, Delta Gamma
Delta Gamma
Delta Gamma is one of the oldest and largest women's fraternities in the United States and Canada, with its Executive Offices based in Columbus, Ohio.-History:...
, Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Alpha Theta , also known as Theta, is an international fraternity for women founded on January 27, 1870 at DePauw University, formerly Indiana Asbury...
, and Sigma Delta Tau
Sigma Delta Tau
Sigma Delta Tau is a national sorority and member of the National Panhellenic Conference, was founded March 25, 1917 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The original name, Sigma Delta Phi, was changed after the women discovered a sorority with the same name already existed...
and the National Pan-Hellenic Council Sororities on campus - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (Lambda Chapter) and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (Rho Chapter).
Traditions
- Every April, Barnard and Columbia students participate in the Take Back the NightTake Back the NightTake Back the Night is an internationally held march and rally intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of sexual violence...
march and speak-out. This annual event grew out of a 1988 Seven SistersSeven Sisters (colleges)The Seven Sisters are seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges. They are Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College. All were founded between 1837 and...
conference. The march has grown from under 200 participants in 1988 to more than 2,500 in 2007. - WBAR-B-Q, an free and all-day music festival takes place on Lehman Lawn every April. It is put on by Barnard's student-run freeformFreeform (radio format)Freeform, or freeform radio, is a radio station programming format in which the disc jockey is given total control over what music to play, regardless of music genre or commercial interests. Freeform radio stands in contrast to most commercial radio stations, in which DJs have little or no...
radio station, WBARWBARWBAR is the college radio station of Barnard College in New York City. Currently online-only, WBAR was developed as a freeform alternative to WKCR on the Columbia University campus. In addition to broadcasting an array of shows, WBAR hosts several shows per year in Morningside Heights, including...
. - Midnight BreakfastMidnight breakfastMidnight breakfast is a generic term for a communal meal served at some American colleges and universities. Menu items that are generally considered breakfast foods are served in the school's dining hall late at night as a study break before or during final exams, or as a traditional...
marks the beginning of finals week. As a highly popular event and long-standing college tradition, Midnight Breakfast is hosted by the student-run activities council, McAC (McIntosh Activities Council). In addition to providing standard breakfast foods, each year's theme is also incorporated into the menu. Past themes have included "I YUMM the 90s," "Grease," and "Take me out to the ballgame." The event is a school-wide affair as college deans, trustees and the President, Debora SparDebora SparDebora L. Spar is the current President of Barnard College, a liberal arts college for women affiliated with Columbia University. As President of Barnard, she is also an academic dean within the university...
, serve food to about a thousand students. It takes place the night before finals begin every semester. - On Spirit Day, there is a large barbecue, the deans serve ice creamIce creamIce cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...
to students, different activities are hosted, and the whole student body celebrates. The school sells "I Love BC" T-shirts, and gives out free Barnard products. The event is run by the Spirit Day Planning Committee which is chaired by the Programming Officer of the student-run activities council, McAC (McIntosh Activities Council) and the Representative for Community Affairs of the Student Government Association (SGA). - During the fall semester, students help to construct and then consumeEatingEating is the ingestion of food to provide for all organisms their nutritional needs, particularly for energy and growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter,...
a sandwichSandwichA sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...
1 miles (1.6 km) long known as "The big sub". Every year another foot is added onto the sub as it stretches across campus. The event is organized by the student-run activities council, McAC (McIntosh Activities Council). - In the spring of each year, Barnard holds the Night Carnival, in which many of Barnard's student groups set up tables with games and prizes. The event is organized by the student-run activities council, McAC (McIntosh Activities Council).
Athletics
Barnard athletes compete in the National Collegiate Athletic AssociationNational Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Division I and the Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
through the Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium. There are 15 intercollegiate teams
College athletics
College athletics refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education . In the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system. The first tier includes the sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies...
, and students also compete at the intramural
Intramural sports
Intramural sports or intramurals are recreational sports organized within a set geographic area. The term derives from the Latin words intra muros meaning "within walls", and was used to indicate sports matches and contests that took place among teams from "within the walls" of an ancient city...
and club levels.
From 1975-1983, before the establishment of the Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium, Barnard students competed as the "Barnard Bears". Prior to 1975, students referred to themselves as the "Barnard honeybears".
Sustainability
Barnard College has issued a statement affirming its commitment to environmental sustainabilitySustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
, a major part of which is the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
emissions by 30% by 2017. Student EcoReps work as a resource on environmental issues for students in Barnard's residence halls, while the student-run Earth Coalition works on outreach initiatives such as local park clean-ups, tutoring elementary school students in environmental education, and sponsoring environmental forums. Barnard earned a "C-" for its sustainability efforts on the College Sustainability Report Card 2009 published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Its highest marks were in Student Involvement and Food and Recycling, receiving a "B" in both categories.
Nine Ways of Knowing
Nine Ways of Knowing are liberal arts requirements. Students must take one year of one laboratory science, study a single foreign language for four semesters, and complete one 3-credit course in each of the following categories: reason and value, social analysis, historical studies, cultures in comparison, quantitative and deductive reasoning, literature, and visual and performing arts. The use of AP or IB credit to fulfill these requirements is very limited, but Nine Ways of Knowing courses may overlap with major or minor requirements. In addition to the Nine Ways of Knowing, students must complete a first-year seminar, a first-year English course, and two semesters of physical education.Controversies
In the spring of 1960 Columbia University President Grayson Kirk complained to the President of Barnard that Barnard students were wearing inappropriate clothing. The garments in question were pants and Bermuda shorts. The administration forced the Student Council to institute a dress code. Students would be allowed to wear shorts and pants only at Barnard and only if the shorts were no more than two inches above the knee and the pants were not tight. Barnard women crossing the street to enter the Columbia campus wearing shorts or pants were required to cover themselves with a long coat similar to a jilbabJilbab
The term jilbāb or jilbaab is the plural of the word jilaabah which refers to any long and loose-fit coat or garment worn by some Muslim women. They believe that this definition of jilbab fulfills the Quranic demand for a Hijab...
.
In March 1968, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ran an article on students who cohabited, identifying one of the persons they interviewed as a student at Barnard College from New Hampshire named "Susan". Barnard officials searched their records for women from New Hampshire and were able to determine that "Susan" was the pseudonym of a student (Linda LeClair) who was living with her boyfriend, a student at Columbia University. She was called before Barnard's student-faculty administration judicial committee, where she faced the possibility of expulsion. A student protest included a petition signed by 300 other Barnard women, admitting that they too had broken the regulations against cohabitating. The judicial committee reached a compromise and the student was allowed to remain in school, but was denied use of the college cafeteria and barred from all social activities. The student briefly became a focus of intense national attention. She eventually dropped out of Barnard.
In October, 2011, the Barnard administration issued a controversial policy which mandated that every student must pay full-time tuition as of Fall 2012, regardless of how many credits were taken. Students, families and faculty alike responded with a petition on Change.org and a protest from students.
Leaders of Barnard College
- Ella WeedElla WeedElla Weed was an American educator, "the guiding spirit in the first four years" of Barnard College.-Life:After graduating from Vassar College, Ella Weed became principal of Miss Brown's School for Girls in New York. Annie Nathan Meyer interested her in the effort to establish Barnard College...
, Chairman of the Board of Trustees and college Secretary ?–1894. - Emily James Smith, Dean 1894–1900
- Laura Drake Gill, Dean 1901–1907
- Virginia GildersleeveVirginia GildersleeveVirginia Crocheron Gildersleeve was an American academic, the long-time Dean of Barnard College, and the sole female US delegate to the April 1945 San Francisco United Nations Conference on International Organization, which negotiated the UN Charter and created the United...
, Dean 1911–1947 - Millicent McIntosh, Dean 1947–1962, President 1952–1962
- Rosemary Park, President 1962–1967
- Martha Peterson, President 1967–1975
- Jacquelyn Mattfield, 1975–1981
- Ellen V. FutterEllen V. FutterEllen V. Futter is president of the American Museum of Natural History. She previously served as president of Barnard College for 13 years.Futter was born in New York City and attended high school in Port Washington, New York...
, 1981–1993 - Judith R. Shapiro, 1994–2008
- Debora L. Spar, 2008–present
See also
- Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of ExcellenceHidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of ExcellenceHidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence is a college educational guide published in 2000. It concerns college admissions in the United States...
- Women's colleges in the United StatesWomen's colleges in the United StatesWomen's colleges in the United States are single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that exclude or limit males from admission. They are often liberal arts colleges...
Sources
- Horowitz, Helen LefkowitzHelen Lefkowitz HorowitzHelen Lefkowitz Horowitz is the Sydenham Clark Parsons Professor of American Studies and History, emerita, at Smith College. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. from Harvard University...
. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 (2nd edition).